i'm traveling today and pecking at a mobile device so this will more succinct than usual. hey, maybe I should do all my entries this way to be a better writer.

Saturday

WOD: seven hours alone with the toddler starting well before dawn. we walked for an hour, this time through the Japanese neighborhood near our house, and the toddler got his first ever Japanese lesson. He sponged it all up. I'm sure it helps that Japanese is a lot more phonetically simple and gramatically efficient than English. perhaps it also helps that he is one quarter Japanese and looks like an anime heartthrob.

Then the farmer's market, which is always a strength, endurance, and vigilance challenge. Then hanging around at the house. Then another scraped kmee which pissed him off to no end. Finally, a trip to the toddler gym, followed by blessed unconsciousness on the drive home (his, not mine, fortunately).

Called in grandma then and went to the gym. i was pretty thrashed already, even lightheaded. but that subtracted nothing from my workout. in fact, this was one of the best ever.

Squat: 120x5, 145x5, 170x5, 240x6, 215x8, 215x8, 215x8, 215x8

this workout was absolutely transcendental. I said my prayer to my ancestors and went for a new record on the top set. Something in my brain snapped and I felt like I was having an out of body experience. As though the spirit of my ancestors was controlling my body and I was just along for the ride. Dominated the set, opened my mouth, and monologued a pep speech that again sounded like somebody else talking to me. Channeling my ancestors? having a psychotic break? I don't care because I was an unstoppable machine. Killed it on the drop sets and obtained max reps on everything. next week, 250.

hard to believe I was crushed under 200 just a few weeks ago. now that i've gotten heavier on the squats I think this is my favorite exercise, even more soul-vulcanizing than the deadlift. I have a lot more to say about this in the woo-woo vein but I'll save that for when I can type better and my plane is not boarding.

oh yeah, my ancestors also said f**k calf raises. Sure Berkhan does em but he doesn't do sprints with a two-year-old on his shoulder.

Sunday: flying today. 15 mins morning sledge nevertheless. Airports are the least primal and most degrading place for humans possibly ever. nothing nice to say about them so I'll stop here.

edit: ok, airports aren't the least primal place. airplane interiors are. sat crushed between two corpulent specimens for four hour. the one on my left obsessively checked sports scores on his blackberry (13 bucks for airplane wireless? really?) and involuntarily hogged the arm rest. the one on my right played Rainbow Six something-or-other on his iPad 2 which seemed like even more of an exercise in frustration than playing a FPS on a console. As he snacked on Chips Ahoy I noticed his arms were impressively vascularized. then I counted the pulse in his wrist and realized he was just hypertensive.

I'm not criticizing. i used to be like this myself. but I do notice it more when I step out of my SoCal echo chamber.

on my layover in Chicago, I determined to find something to eat. I could pull an all-day fast but it seemed a shame the day after an epic squat session. this being Chicago I managed to find a place selling 8oz ribeyes and bought three of them. then I snagged a "grilled vegetable salad bowl" which turned out to be about 80% rice and beans. a couple sides of guacamole rounded out the purchase. not cheap but I roughly hit my protein quota for the day and can sleep soundly when I get to the hotel in the dead of night.

while chewing through the beef in a jiffy, so as not to miss my connection, two very obese airport workers sat down beside me and tucked into a bag of McDonald's. I only heard one part of their conversation: "you don't eat meat, that's why I want to know!"

Grok save me from the Bruegelesque grotesquerie that is middle America.

Here I am in National Harbor, MD, on business, which is something like DC's miniature answer to Las Vegas, only without gambling or sex. I slept the night in decadent luxury, in a bed bigger than my bed at home, and yet not shared with anyone, nor moistened with toddler pee and vomit. My 10 hour slumber included many crazy dreams, including one featuring Primal Toad, but I can't remember anything else about it. Reminder, I am heterosexual.

In the morning I went for a walk along the Potomac. Barefooting through freshly cut grass was a refreshing change from my usual landscape of concrete and dog droppings, but what I really appreciated the most was the clean air. I live next to a freeway and it always blows my mind to smell air that is actually fresh. Sweet gift to my lungs. I even found a remote spot where I stripped to the waist and stretched in the sun, which was surprisingly warm and mild for DC in October. Ah, this reminds me of my recent ancestors' habitat, with cool breezes and a bright northern-latitude sun. If only I was here on vacation I would have walked the whole day away.

But I'm not, and I didn't. I went to many indoor meetings discussing topics too tiresome to relate.

One of many benefits of IF is saving one's food budget for a single outstanding meal. I was fortunate to find a place selling grass-fed steaks from a ranch near my own home. 24 ounces of solid porterhouse, with a nice eggy salad and plenty of asparagus. I told the waiter to hold the bread but bring the whipped butter, which is the best dipping sauce for steak. I lacked only hyena jaws to crush the bone for dessert.

Another day in National Harbor. Up at 8:30. Not bad given the three-hour time difference from LA and the bed trying to turn me into Rip Van Winkle.

WOD: 50-minute stroll on the Potomac. Grass on the way out, crushed limestone/shell pathway on the way back. My feet are acclimatized to nothing bumpier than asphalt, but uneven ground feels so much better. This is a real core workout, not like the weird Spanish-Inquisition devices you find in the gym. After a couple miles it felt like I had tightened an internal corset.

Hyper-observant readers will notice that my deadlift numbers were all 25 pounds lighter than they should have been. (Actually, I worry for you if you noticed that. Don't you have anything better to read?) That is because I was obliged to do my deadlifts on a Smith Machine, and only at the end, when I accidentally sent the deloaded bar crashing into the top of the frame, did I notice that the damn thing was counterweighted by 25 pounds. What the hell!

I haven't felt so cheated since I practiced counting cards in blackjack all summer one year only to get kicked out of a Reno casino. Good thing they never caught my obviously fake ID. Then I won several hundred quite by accident playing craps at another casino. My ancestors were with me even then, ubi nullum timet mortem, sed pro Baccho mittunt sortem.

Anyway, deadlifting on a Smith Machine is possibly even more retarded than squatting on same, but it was all I had. And fortunately the entire gym population was afflicted with the itis so I had it all to myself.

Speaking of the itis, I didn't see hardly any people outside on the path by the river, but the cardio machines were in great demand. Hilariously, some people were staring at monitors depicting a natural environment as they hamstered along. They were simulating running in nature instead of, you know, running in nature. Zoo humans are the sadness.

Chinups were damn strong, setting a new record and almost hitting the progression marker, even though I had to clench a barbell between my calves which threw my form a bit. Then again, considering I've lost almost ten pounds over the past couple of weeks, this is not a huge improvement. But I'll take it.

Then the rows. Discombobulated by the alien environment and deeply put off by the gym speakers playing "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend," I accidentally stood all wrong. Instead of rowing on the side with my standing leg, other leg kneeling on the bench, my legs were reversed. And what do you know, it was actually a funky twist on the original, more challenging on the core. For the drop set I went back to the standard position, which was a bit easier. I'll hold on to that routine. How I love failing my way to innovation! If it weren't for mistakes and ripping off other people I'd never discover anything new.

Then I stopped by Elevation Burger, the main attraction of this bizarre hamlet. In case you didn't know, they are the premier burger place in America, serving grass-fed burgers with intelligent sides. I ordered a pound and a half combined weight. Noticed the dude working the counter was the same dude from last year.

"Hey, I remember you from last year! Blah, blah blah... and wow, you've lost some weight!" said I.
"Yeah, about 15 pounds! Thanks!"
"Just keeping eating these burgers, that's all you need to do."
"Yeah, especially the veggie burgers."

Hey Timothy,
I tried the liver today. Almost vomited. So while I want to get all that energy and fat loss by eating liver, I just don't think I can stomach it. Nothing has grossed me out so much in quite some time!

Jens, I sympathize completely. First time with the liver, I couldn't handle more than .75 pounds of it. Eating it was at least as much of a challenge as a daunting weight workout or distance run. Even though I can now choke it back a bit easier than before, I can't understand people who say they actually like it. There's a guy at my work who says he loves it. I'm going to call his bluff some day.

Here you go, RJ, I made this liver just for you. Eat it. Eat it right now. No water. Oh, you're not hungry are you? I can wait. I can wait all freaking day.

Hey, check it out! Karen De Coster, my original primal inspiration, wrote a review of Mark's new book on lewrockwell.com today. She even mentions me! Righteous. Now all the LRC writers and Mises.com academicians must go primal, starting with Tom Woods, the better to cow their intellectually bankrupt detractors.

Went for a last walk along the Potomac today. Perfect weather: temps in the 50s, chilling winds, brooding gray skies with a couple of rainbows. Passed a whole treadmill farm of zoo humans on my way out, but had the path all to myself to the extent that I dared to strip off my shirt. That's living! Would have gone stark naked if I thought I could get away with it, but I didn't want to end up as tazer bait. Why do only the Germans take a sensible attitude to public nudity?

Lingered as long as I could before checking out and heading to the airport. Starving by lunch time, but fortunately found a place selling buffalo burgers. I ordered a pound and a half and raided the condiments bar like a pillaging Dane. Napped on my flight to Chicago and put that protein to work on my aching muscles.

Starving again when I got to Chicago. Succumbed to the temptation of a hot dog and paid for it with a mild headache afterwards. Then my flight got delayed and my hunger flared up again. Fortunately there was a place in the food court selling grass-fed brisket (!). Pounded that with some veggies and fresh guacamole.

Then my flight was delayed yet again. They were giving away free meal vouchers, so what the hell? Still a bit of room for fat in my diet today. I got creative and snagged some maltitol-sweetened dark chocolate.

Now I am happy as a pig with a truffle. But Grok have mercy on my seat mates.